


The Art of Being

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mental Instability, Photographer AU, Photographer!Ben, Student!Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6431404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey knows how to survive. Ben wants her to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Being

**Author's Note:**

> What do you do when your exams are in less than six weeks? Write another Photographer AU, of course! 
> 
> (This isn't a rehash of Take a Shot. Ben Solo is not Kylo Ren and vice versa.)
> 
> (This is what he tells himself.)

    It’s nearing lunch hour in the café, but the girl is still hogging an entire table, frantically typing on a small laptop. Papers are scattered all over any available surface and more besides. She pauses now and then to take a sip from a cup of coffee, the only purchase she’d made during the entire four-hour study session. Finally, a waiter loses patience and orders her to make way for other customers. In her hurry to leave, she knocks over the cup, spilling over-caffeinated liquid all over the laptop. It fizzes ominously, and a few sparks fly out of the keyboard.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she mutters. A few papers drift onto the small brown puddle and are soaked instantly. After a few half-hearted attempts to pick them up, the girl gives up and simply gathers the remaining sheets of loose-leaf together, dumping them into an oversized messenger bag. The rest of her paraphernalia- stationery, assorted bits of plasticine, and a notebook soon follow.

Ben watches the scene with barely concealed irritation, silently willing the stupid student to just go away and let far more competent people deal with the mess. Honestly speaking, he has extreme dislike for this kind of selfish behaviour. But in this case, helping made more trouble for people later on, so he supposes that her simply leaving was the better option.

However, the girl persists in clearing up the area, stubbornly scrubbing away at the table with a borrowed rag. A waitress stands a few feet away, uncomfortably hanging around. Ben sighs under his breath at the incompetence. The waiter should just grab the damn rag and do it herself. After all, that was what she’s paid to do.

By the time the barista hands him his drink, an espresso, black, no sugar, the only trace of the girl is a brown stain on the carpet and blue globs of plasticine stuck on the table. He leaves quickly and gets into his car, an ancient Upsilon-class model, but still in good condition. Some may say that Ben keeps his first car out of sentimentality, but he has a better answer- the trademark folding-wing doors are the only ones that can comfortably fit his tall frame. People may laugh at such a pragmatic decision, but Ben is always like that- pragmatic. Everything must have a reason, must fit, must make sense.

Why, then, when Ben sees the girl struggling on the icy, snow-covered pavement does he stop and pull over?

And why the hell did she agree to get into a complete stranger’s car?

On the drive to her place, a tiny flat in the grungier area of town, Ben wonders.

It could be that she looked cold, and the car had room for more, or that the girl had a truly misplaced sense of self-preservation- smart enough to try and get out of the cold, but not smart enough to choose another place other than a complete stranger’s car.

It could have been any of the thousand and one reasons Ben thinks of on the fifty-minute ride, but he knows in his heart there is only one.

Because he was a goddamn idiot.

\---

The silence is stifling but infinitely preferable to the howling winds outside. Rey keeps quiet, now and then attempting to make small talk. It becomes clear, though, that the long-haired man doesn’t like speaking very much. He takes a few seconds to toss a bulky camera bag on the passenger seat to the back, then motions for her to get in.

“Thank you very much,” she says quickly, because the blessed heat of the radiator consumes her attention almost immediately. He nods, an impercible tilt of the head, and suddenly, Rey remembers long-ago reminders about stranger danger and car rides, from when there were people who cared enough about her to say so. But she tries not to think too much of the past, and anyway, the freeway is soon speeding past tinted windows, and it’s not like she could simply open the door and jump out at seventy-five miles per hour.

The sound of screeching tyres and crunching metal surface in her memory and she involuntarily shivers. For all of his studied indifference, the man notices and turns up the heat.

She attempts a wobbly smile at the kindness, then realizes that he can’t see it anyway. Not if he takes his eyes off the road. _And cause an accident._

“So… you’re a student.” The man says, somehow making his question sound like a statement, and an accusing one at that.

“Yeah,” she says, blushing slightly at the realization that he must have seen her in the café, and the incident that had occurred there.

She elaborated a touch defensively, saying, “my roommates are kinda noisy, so I usually try to study outside.”

“Of course. A café at peak hour has excellent acoustics for studying.” It takes Rey a moment to realize that he was making a joke. Living alone in the Outer Rim for nearly all of her life impaired social skills like that.

She laughs weakly, and that is pretty much the end of their conversation for the rest of the journey.

\---

Ben insists on driving her all the way up to the front door, instead of dropping her off at a side alley like she said. This is for purely selfish reasons- the alley is covered in graffiti and utterly filthy, containing smells he refuses to expose the car to. Besides, if something happened to her on the way to the flat, he would be traced to as the last person of contact, and may be sued.

The girl doesn’t seem to be the legalistic type, though, Ben realizes at the last minute when she gives him a hasty hug before getting out of the car. In fact, she seemed to be the total opposite- overly accepting and trusting of others.

“Thanks a lot, Mr...?”

“Solo.” Ben replies unthinkingly. His mind is filled with thoughts of how striking she looks, the slight cast of her face made radiant by weak yellow streetlamps that flickered on and off. She is vital, healthy, _alive_. The thought that such an expression is directed him makes him slightly dizzy.

“I’m Rey,” she volunteers, knowing full well that the chance of their meeting again was probably nil.

Ben feels like impulsively reaching for the camera in the backseat, or continuing to stare at this unexpectedly beautiful visage. He does neither, fingers tightening around the wheel.

“It’s late. You should go now.” Ben turns around before catching sight of her crestfallen face, then drives off at a speed probably faster than safe. He doesn’t look back in the rear-view mirror, and doesn’t see Rey waving.

\---

The two of them promptly forget about each other over the next couple of weeks. Ben is busy putting together a portfolio for an architecture firm, and that exact blend of mathematical precision and artistic temperament never fails to drive him mad, and all thoughts of chance encounters with surprisingly striking girls out of his head.

His days are filled with getting the exact angle and reflection right, with making sure that the shadows fall just so, and all a manner of listening to and doling out meaningless drivel about structural integrity, curved facades and the like. But he knows how to pander with them, and he does it well, so they always hire him for shoots. It’s a slightly tiresome, but very comfortable living he makes as a photographer.

Then on the third day, after he has compiled a nice thick folder of hand-hewn timber lodges and Japanese saunas, they introduce models and everything goes to shit.

The women are Barbie dolls as usual, and the men look like they’ve just walked out of a Calvin Klein magazine, but somehow, Ben feels that something essential is missing. Under the bleak winter sun, they take shot after shot, until his camera runs out of memory space and everybody, patience.

“Ben,” the firm manager, a short, potbellied man says, “what’s wrong? I thought that all the pictures looked fabulous, as usual.” With a conspiratorial wink, he continues.

“Though if you wanted more of the ladies, I won’t say anything.”

Ben irritably stubbed out the cigarette he was occupied with, then replied.

“It’s just that…” he tried to express the liveliness that the models were totally devoid of. For a single, drawn-out moment, he was overwhelmed with strong disgust, for how they lounged about, ‘looking fabulous’, pretty faces, masks with absolutely nothing below. It was difficult to tell when they were posing and when they weren’t, for every movement seemed calculated for maximum effect and appeal. He used to admire them for such effortless control over their bodies, but now it seems strange, twisted, unnatural.  A youthful smile flashed quickly in his mind’s eye, and just as quickly, it fades away.

He gives up helplessly in the face of such emotion, and mutters a quick ‘never mind’ to the man.

They quickly wrap up the shoots after that, and Ben simply gives the portfolio the most perfunctory look-over before tossing it into the mailbox.

\---

The next time Ben sees Rey again, it is, amusingly enough, at the café. She’s wearing the brown apron of staff there and a small name tag is fastened to it.

“Working off the damage already?” he asks.

She shrugs in return, not looking up from where she is mopping the floor.

“Starving student and all that,” she gestures vaguely. “The landlord just upped my rent.”

He nods in return, not really sympathetic to her plight. The truth is, he’d stopped worrying about things like rent ages ago, after joining the photography studio. It doesn’t make him rich, but he could decently get by.

Rey finishes mopping that corner of the café and moved on to the next, her small arms working tirelessly. Ben feels exhausted just from watching her. Sure, he wouldn’t pass out from running around a client’s infinity pool a few times, but it isn’t like he works out with any regularity. His hours were rather unpredictable and so, it was hard to commit to any proper training schedule.

Ben lingers long after the last dregs of coffee are drained from his cup, flicking mindlessly through his phone’s apps, and watching Rey from behind an old newspaper. He usually spends the downtime straight after a big project just not doing anything at all. This is a nice change.

Beads of sweat have gathered on her brow, and strands of honey-brown hair have come loose from the three little loops she’d tied up. It’s a little unconventional, and certainly something you don’t see in the city. Maybe, she’d come from somewhere in the furthest reaches of Wild Space. Ben imagines a tribal existence in the woods of Endor, or herding banthas for a living. He dismisses them as silly dreams of somebody who’d spent all his life in the busy metropolis of Coruscant. Still. It’s nice to imagine Rey as somebody untouched by all that hustle and bustle, at least for the first few years of her life. Sometimes, she fits that stereotype- dressing too lightly for the bitter winter, or not knowing her way around public transport. If he hadn’t picked her up the other time, it would have been a good one and a half hours by foot to her flat.

A sudden thought strikes Ben. She is working here now. How often does she have to make that arduous journey, there and back? He feels slightly nauseous, and it isn’t just from the bitter brew. 

He waits until her shift was over, then approaches the girl.

“Rey,” he says softly, tapping her lightly on the shoulder. She startles a little, then grins when she recognizes him.

“Oh, hello.” This unexpectedly warm greeting causes the invitation for a ride home to totally slips from Ben’s mind. Instead, he blurts out something else entirely.

“Do you want a job modelling? I work at a photography studio, and-”

His words are interrupted by a peal of laughter.

“Me? Modelling? Are you serious?” She exclaims after regaining her breath. Ben smiles back uncomfortably.

“Uh, never mind about that. I was wondering if you wanted a ride back.”

“Oh, it’s alright.” She replies, a little flushed, “my friends are picking me up.”

\---

The truth is, the reason she refuses isn’t because Finn and Poe are fetching her. It’s because of the strangely hungry, desperate look in Ben’s eyes. Suddenly, he seems less like a kind stranger who gave her a ride home, and more like a creepy middle-aged man people here cracked jokes about. She’d noticed him looking at her, staring at her with an intensity that went beyond normal curiosity while she worked. Despite the sincere invitation for a ride home, Rey has to fight her instincts to refuse.

She had seen that kind of kind earnestness morph into something else entirely, that time when she’d exited his car. A smile on her part had made him gaze at her so fixedly, so intensely, as if her very sight was mesmerizing.

Ben sees something about her, and the fact that she didn’t even know what it was, makes her feel both exhilarated and scared at the same time.

Try as she might, her mind keeps wandering back to the vivid memory of him drinking her in, the extravagantly long hair framing his pale face, the full, red lips that parted slightly in awe. Most of all, the ridiculously large eyes, darker than the nights at Nimaa Outpost. Did all photographers look like that? Like a smouldering candle whose flame was nearly extinguished, a flickering wick that could burn you, or not?

There was a game the children of Jakku would play, in the flickering light of discarded oil drums. After the cooking fires had burnt out, a tiny, left-over candle would be retrieved, and they would dare each other to press their fingers to the smouldering wick. The odds were roughly fifty-fifty that they’d be burnt, Rey remembers. She only hopes that the same applies to him, because she’s taking the chance.

“Ben,” she calls, just as he’s leaving, “I just remembered that they’re doing overtime. Are you alright with sending me?” He smiles broadly, then turns around.

“Of course.”

He holds the door open for her, and the two of them walk across the carpark to his vehicle.

\---

He’s strangely excited at how readily she accepted his offer, as if this is proof of her trust in him. For a moment there, he worried by the indecision on her face, but it’s fine now.  As they pull out into the freeway, Rey’s head nods lower and lower, and soon she’s fast asleep, leaning against Ben’s shoulder. The ticklish sensation of her hair brushing on his bare forearm nearly drives Ben to distraction, but he still manages to get them to her front door in one piece.

He looks at Rey while the engine idles in front of her flat, then finally jostles her awake. The peaceful, contented look on her face is promptly spoiled, as she squints against the glaring street lights. For a moment she looks confused, but then hops out of the car and bids him goodbye.

“See you soon,” he says in response. She blows him a kiss and he imagines those lips on his.

\---

The two of them establish a routine, where he stops by the café after work, then sends her home when her shift ends. Sometimes, they head to a Greek restaurant for dinner in between the two trips.

Conversation flows easily between them, as they talk about old cars, mechanical engineering and anything that warrants their mutual attention. Ben finds out that she likes drawing, and is impressed by the few sketches she shows him. They’re of nature, complicated machines she plans out for engineering coursework, or people she’d met on the street. One picture in particular catches his eyes.

“What’s that?” he asks, pointing out a silhouette of a car in a darkened street.

“Oh, nothing,” she replies awkwardly. If Ben squints, he can make out a long-haired figure within. He smiles wryly and let her keep it.

On the weekends, if both their schedules are free, they sometimes go to gallery viewings, or to the nearby farmer’s market where Rey admires the fresh produce.

“Anybody would think you never saw a broccoli before,” he says teasingly to her, as she practically stares lovingly at the vegetables for minutes at a time.

Abashed, Rey admits “Where I come from, not really.” As such, Ben’s suspicions about her homeworld are partially confirmed. He gestures to the crates and crates of produce.

“Take what you want,” he tells her. “We can make a stew later, at my apartment.”

“Oh, that’s nice of you,” Rey blushes furiously, realizing what the invitation probably entails.

“I like nice men.”

Ben can’t resist it.

“I’m a nice man,” he says, taking a wicker basket and her hand at the same time.

Rey tries not to be greedy, limiting herself to the less pricey and more common types of produce. She chooses a few earthy potatoes, some long, purple carrots and a bag of peas. These are, as her extremely scant knowledge can tell her, the commonly used ingredients in stew. But Ben stares incredulously at the barely heavy basket, and insists that they go another round in the market. So, an oversized ear of corn, tiny onions and a jar of freshly ground pepper soon follow, as well as the other things Ben lets her pick out. A jar of apple honey is probably her favourite, and she licks her fingers after trying out a sample.

Ben doesn’t let her see the total on the cash register, and on their way to his apartment, he picks up a tub of peppermint ice cream at the gas station, after learning that she never had it before.

This kind of generosity is totally unknown to Rey, who only knew the hungry, sleepless nights on Jakku, and the near-permanent state of deprivation. When she had her health check-up at the University, they’d found out about her malnourishment. Even after three months of a solid diet prescribed to her, the curve of her collar bone still juts out rather prominently, and she has accepted her short height as a result of stunted development.

As they curl up on the sofa, sharing the ice cream, Rey asks, “Isn’t dessert supposed to be after a meal?”

Ben swats the side of her head, gently.

“I still can’t get over the fact that you never had this before, and I don’t want it to stress me out for the entire meal.”

 “Oh,” Rey says nervously, “they didn’t really have the resources. In Jakku, any type of refrigeration system is five times the cost of here.”

“Jakku,” Ben repeats, pensively swirling the rapidly melting ice cream in his bowl. “So that’s where you grew up.”

“Yeah,” her eyes don’t meet his. “I was left there, at Nimaa Outpost when I was six, or seven.”

“Your parents abandoned you?”

“I dunno. I don’t really remember them.”

“That’s scary,” he comments. “To grow up not knowing who you are, or where you came from. You’re so brave.”

“Not really.” Her appetite has suddenly shrunk. “In the Outer Rim, people always find a way to survive.”

“They have to,” she says, more to herself than anyone else.

Ben hears, and something clenches inside him at hearing the sadness in her voice. He knows that she has long ago come to terms with her past, or rather, the lack of it, but it still hurts.

“You don’t need to worry about that anymore, Rey,” he says, and can’t tell if he’s doing it to comfort her, or himself.

“You know how to survive. Now, it’s time to live.”

Ben stares at her with a startling intensity, and Rey feels a shiver run down her spine. Still, she complies when he leans forward.

Their kiss is unexpectedly gentle, full of restrained need, and Ben’s tongue lightly runs along the edge of hers. Somehow, Rey still manages to lose her breath.

“Ben,” she gasps when they finally pull apart.

His only response is to stroke the soft curve of her cheek.

 


End file.
